coal powered CV's

coal powered CV's

Bill Stone - fantastic guy for his war records and for living so long to keep us all reminded of what our immediate ancestors did for us.

But I noticed he was a stoker on HMS Eagle at the end of the 20's and a weird sort of question popped into my mind - would it be possible to have a significantly sized air-group with a coal powered ship?

Thinking of sustainable launch/landing speeds and also obscured visibility - have a picture of the 'black crew' totally knackered after launching half the air group and the ships speed trailing off... not likely I know as the crew numbers would be geared accordingly...

But what a coincidence (co-Incidence) that oil powered ships were acceptable just prior to the aircraft carrier coming onstream...

Well, believe it or not, there actually WERE coal burning aircraft carriers, namely USS Wolverine and USS Sable, used for training carrier pilots during World War II. The idea seems to have worked fine...

Hee! Side-wheelers, weren't they? No hangars or maintenance facilities, pretty much a lakes steamer with a flight deck glued on top.
Would a coal-fueled ship moving at 30 knots generate too much smoke to allow flight operations?

Yes. Coal-burning paddle-wheelers, and -- so far as I know -- the only ships in the USN to have double-swinging doors into the wardroom, just like in the saloons in cowboy movies.

It's tough to say what the top-speed of such a ship might be, but I would be surpised if even a custom-built ship could exceed the speed of one of the World War I coal-burning battlecruisers. They had a lot of horsepower and a very efficient hull-design.

I don't know how much smoke might have been produced and whether it would have significantly affected flight operations. One could check a few photos of these old ships at high speed and see what the smoke cloud looked like.

The biggest problem might have been the pilot getting a 'cinder in the eye'; I'm just old enough to have travelled across Canada a few times behind a steam locomotive, and there was -- at least from these -- a fair amount of debris in the smoke cloud as well as, well, just plain smoke... How the smoke output and composition of fire tube and water tube boilers might have compared is not something I know much about.

Actually, a big smoke plume might have served as a rudimentary automatic landing system; just enter the landing circle, make a turn and fly down the center of the big black cloud. :-)

Landing in a visibility-reducing smoke plume is simply stupid. Losing sight of the landing area at the wrong instant has killed many naval aviators and their crews.

Losing control coming in for the landing is similarly lethal. Flying through a hot plume of smoke on your landing approach is going to bat a light, slow, early aircraft around to a dangerous extent.

If the carrier accepts even a mild cross-wind to blow the smoke away from the flight path, it sets up dangerous air flows across the flight deck. Bad enough that there is always a burble behind the ship to try and throw you off; having one flowing across the deck as well isn't a good idea. This is especially the case in a light, slow, early aircraft.

The plume is also corrosive, which will reduce the already limited potential service life of the aircraft even further, not to mention coal-dust about the ship. Corrosion control is a major issue even with modern aircraft on nuclear carriers. With wooden aircraft held together with baling wire and dauped canvas...

Oil-firing for boilers and aircraft appearing at the same time is anything but coincidence. For aircraft to be possible, you need light powerful internal combustion engines which require highly refined petroleum-based fuels. Much more highly refined, in fact, than bunker fuel for ships. The appearance of the two in the same period was not serrendipity, but a necessary adjunct of the technology necessary for flight.

Very true... unless you have a lot of wood/coal fires around you tend to forget about the 'bits' in the smoke.

Fuel types - agreed, one usually comes after the other - but then petrol (aka 'gas') was discovered before fuel-oil - it being a 'waste' product from the production of kerosene.

Non-military types tend to underestimate the degree of danger that is involved in a carrier landing as, I guess, we do not comprehend the complexity. "hell, just switch the auto pilot on to land". Or is that all types apart from those who have done it/participated in.

I do think Tiornu's masts and rigging would interfere more with the landing path than a coal plume though... ;)

Much more highly refined, in fact, than bunker fuel for ships. The appearance of the two in the same period was not serrendipity, but a necessary adjunct of the technology necessary for flight.
v/r Electric Joe

The navy did not use Bunker 'C' fuel pre se it used a cut back known as" navy special " it was bunker C cut 20 -30% with a distilate perferably crystilite Aka kerosene. at least during WW2, it had a very high BTU output and a medium flash point

NUFF SAID

BOBC

For those that fought freedom has a taste and meaning the protected will never know

...was such that prior to the initiation of the systematic naval aviation safety program (which IIRC from my manual--it has been a decade since I last opened it--was post-1951) the probability of getting yourself dead in a 20-year career in naval aviation was 25%.

Things have improved dramatically since then, however, I am aware of at least one member of my graduating class whose face has an X through it in the class photo from an in-flight fire that downed his E-2. That is from a class of about twenty.

Of the three of us who graduated from my college and went to jets, I'm the only one who never had to eject. Of the other two, one ejected from an A-6 that experienced a double engine fire. The other survived a ramp-strike in an F-14. The plat film of his crash is now part of the film they show in the first two hours after you report to flight school.

By the time that two-hour film of all the most horrific crashes in naval aviation is over and they come to collect you for orientation, 5% of those who show up for flight school walk out and quit.

"All right, I have another option. I got it while watching Ben Hur.... "

Your thinking too big Tiornu. Horses are too big and much messier than my plan. Rodent power is the answer. You can even breed new ones onboard to replace those that die off. Hamsters, thousands of them running in their wheels, all connected to the shafts. When you need a speed increase, drop a hit or two of caffeine into their water.
later, Bill

Sable's first skipper was a captain, but Wolverine's was a commander. I'm not sure anyone would be especially irked to be training on the lakes. Fewer headaches than training on the coast where you have the threat of submarine attack.

The night of 17 February 1944 an aerial torpedo struck Intrepid's starboard quarter, 15 feet below her waterline, flooding several compartments and jamming her rudder hard to port. By racing her port screw and idling her starboard engine, Captain Sprague kept her on course until 2 days later strong winds swung her back and forth and tended to weathercock her with her bow pointed toward Tokyo. Sprague later confessed: "Right then I wasn't interested in going in that direction." At this point the crew fashioned a jury-rig sail of hatch covers and scrap canvas which swung Intrepid about and held her on course. Decorated by her crazy-quilt sail, Intrepid stood into Pearl Harbor 24 February 1944.

"The night of 17 February 1944 an aerial torpedo struck Intrepid's starboard quarter, 15 feet below her waterline, flooding several compartments and jamming her rudder hard to port. By racing her port screw and idling her starboard engine, Captain Sprague kept her on course until 2 days later strong winds swung her back and forth and tended to weathercock her with her bow pointed toward Tokyo. Sprague later confessed: "Right then I wasn't interested in going in that direction." At this point the crew fashioned a jury-rig sail of hatch covers and scrap canvas which swung Intrepid about and held her on course. Decorated by her crazy-quilt sail, Intrepid stood into Pearl Harbor 24 February 1944.

[cough cough Bismarck mumble cough] "

Could Bismark have tried this? Was the wind coming from the right direction? I am amazed at times by what I come across here.
Later, Bill